He sighed and closed his eyes again, not wanting to see the sunlight filtering through the crack in his curtains.
When he had gotten home in the early hours of the morning, he hadn’t even bothered to unload the flatbed of his truck with the bags he had packed only hours before. All being well, he might be able to get out of there later that day and no one would be any the wiser. Especially his pack.
The bear inside of him began to growl as he thought of the mess they were all in. The Lone Reach Bears weren’t exactly flying high, even if they were on the verge of opening the biggest brewery for miles around and about to put the whole town on the map. There were plenty of people interfering, and as the alpha, Mason couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible. He felt as if his inaction had gotten them all into this mess. Suddenly, bikers from another town were involved with their dealings, and he was the one who was going to ensure his people were safe. They may have been opening a brewery, but it had come at a cost… and he was having trouble dealing with it.
He rubbed his forehead, the headache threatening to pierce through him once more. He knew he had failed in his role as alpha; he was sick of outsiders meddling in the Bears’ affairs. And now that it had gone too far to pull it all back, he felt as if he had fallen short and that he was to blame for the mess that had happened to them over the past ten years, even if he knew deep down that was totally irrational.
He growled and finally forced himself to his feet. He rubbed his big hands through his mussed-up hair and looked in the mirror, his heaving chest and muscles naked and pulsing in the half-light.
“Mason,” he sighed. “You’re a fucking mess.”
He half-laughed and opened the bedroom door before stomping down the hallway to the living area of his cabin. He couldn’t believe he was waking up to another day in Lone Reach when he had planned to have at least three hundred miles between him and there by now. But fate had a funny way of intervening.
He yawned and grabbed his favorite mug before he started to boil some hot water to make his morning coffee. He may have been half man and half powerful animal, but he still needed a little caffeine to pick him up in the morning. The bear inside him may as well have been in hibernation he was so goddam tired.
When he had walked out the front door the night before, determined he wasn’t ever coming back, he hadn’t even noticed the piles of dirty dishes sitting in the sink, or the layers of dust running all around the beams above his head. He looked around the room and really took it all in. Since he had broken up with his last girlfriend three years before, he had started to slip into unhealthy habits and slowly, gave up altogether. He didn’t want to be with anyone, and he didn’t feel the need to make sure his home was spick and span. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realized, it must have been adding to his terrible mood.
He groaned and rubbed his hand down his face again.
If he was ever going to snap himself out of this funk, he was probably going to have to start with his environment.
“This place is a pigsty,” he said as he looked up at the dusty cobwebs on the beams and in the corner of the ceiling again. “It’s no wonder you’ve been feeling like shit.”
He drained the rest of his coffee and headed for the shower. One step at a time. He still wasn’t sure if he was staying in tow, and he better try to wake himself up before the day fully began.
His truck bounced over the potholes at the beginning of Main Street, and he cursed underneath his breath at the fact they hadn’t been fixed yet. He knew he was going to have to be the person to step in and speak to the mayor; it didn’t appear he had any intention of trying to help bring Lone Reach up to scratch before the brewery opened. In fact, he didn’t seem to care much about the town at all.
It was a good thing this place had shifters protecting it, or who knows what would become of it.
The town center was full of hustle and bustle, and the familiar sight of everything managed to eke a small smile out of Mason. He did love this place, even if he tried his best to hate it. He had lived there since he was born, barely traveling far, and knew pretty much everyone in town.
His eyes drifted along Main Street, taking in the stores, alive with light and smiling people, folks getting their groceries, girls in the beauty salon having their hair and nails done, men gathering at the side of the street talking about the latest football game and laughing and joking with each other. It was a quaint place, full of charm and rustic living, but it worked for him.
If only the bikers hadn’t gotten so involved.
He had been okay with it at first, and he knew they were good men. But he had a bad feeling. Something was twisting away at his gut since the brewery site had become a reality and now that they were so close to opening, he was beginning to regret letting the bikers be involved at all.
It was why he wanted to leave town. He felt like he had failed; he felt as if he had lost control of his pack, and with nothing tying him there, he had decided to make the break. He wanted to find meaning in his life.
He pulled his truck up to the curb and parked before climbing out and putting some change in the meter. It was a frigid day, but the sun was shining behind the clouds and breaking through, which lifted his mood slightly.
He had been planning on driving straight back out to the site where he had found the girls, and where their car was, no doubt, still covered in snow, but he knew he needed someone to tow it, and he may as well stop by the garage to hurry them along. Plus, he wanted the plows to clear the road, so he might have a chance of leaving. He knew the mayor wouldn’t have sent any.
He was about to make his way to the mayor’s office when he heard a voice call his name from a distance. He stopped, furrowed his brow, and slowly turned around.
The crowd was thick all down the street as people weaved in and out of stores and stood chatting with one another, but there was something familiar about the call of his name that made him wait a moment. And sure enough, he heard it again.
The frequency of her voice sent a tingle along his spine, and he felt his bear stir.
“No,” he said to himself. “Don’t do this to yourself…”
He wasn’t going to permit himself to feel anything, even if he was being pulled in her direction and almost couldn’t look away from her when he was in her presence.
He slipped his hands into his pockets and even though he was as tough as they came, he still felt his heart jig a little in his chest with apprehension.
The crowds parted slightly, and he saw her running toward him, gripping the hand of the little girl he had saved the night before, and he felt his skin begin to burn. She looked as good as when he had first laid eyes on her only hours before, but seeing her in the daylight, and the way the sun glinted in her eyes and shone on her perfect skin, made his bones shake.
She was so goddam beautiful. He knew he was in trouble.
“Hey, Mason!” the girl called to him as she jogged along, waving and bringing her daughter with her.
He stopped and smiled, and as she approached, she did too.
They were both out of breath and he couldn’t help but smirk at them. They were adorable.
Stop it… he told himself.
“We’re really keeping you on your toes here, aren’t we?” he laughed.
Chloe nodded as she caught her breath.
He looked at Harper and smiled.
“And how did you sleep?” he asked her.
Harper was clinging to a tub of chocolate spread for, what appeared to be, dear life, but she also looked much more relaxed than in the early hours of the morning.
She smiled at him with big brown eyes that seemed to mirror her mom’s.
Chloe sighed.
“I just wanted to say, thanks again for last night,” she said shyly.
Mason nodded and tried to keep up his tough-guy exterior.
“It’s no problem,” he said matter-of-factly. “You would have done the same.”
She bit her
bottom lip, and he found his eyes drawn to her teeth and the way they were gripping its plumpness. He had to look away as his heart raced harder.
“I thought I may have had some news when I woke up this morning,” she panted. “But Mary said she hadn’t heard anything from you.”
“No,” Mason said. “I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m actually just on my way to the mayor’s office to see if he’s aware of what happened and if he’s dispatched a plow. Knowing him, though, he hasn’t.”
Her eyes were such a beautiful color, and they were deep and engulfing. Her pupils were wide and so dark, but they blended in with the intense brown so perfectly that it made her eyes look even wider and more inviting.
“Small towns, huh?” she smiled.
“Are you familiar?” he asked as the three of them began to walk along.
She nodded and rolled her eyes.
“All too well,” she laughed.
She had such a refreshing aura about her. Most of the women he had ever met were slightly stuck up and standoffish, but Chloe and her daughter seemed natural and down to Earth. He knew he had done them a big favor and had saved them from a night out in the wilderness, but even if he had done that for half the girls who lived in Lone Reach, he didn’t think he would get much more than a curt thank you. Chloe seemed genuinely pleased to be chatting to him, and even though he could sense she was holding parts of herself back, he didn’t mind because she was such a breath of fresh air.
Harper skipped along with them as they made their way toward the mayor, but Chloe kept guarded about why they had found themselves out on the road that late at night.
“I just prefer to travel then,” she said. “The roads are so quiet, and Harper can sleep. It saves her having to sit through any long and boring car journeys.”
She seemed genuine, but he had the feeling she was covering something. But he had no reason to push her.
“I know what you mean,” he half-laughed. “I guess I was doing the same thing.”
He slowed his pace as they approached Town Hall and the office of the mayor. It was in the center of Main Street and surrounded by a small park covered in fluffy, fresh snow.
“It’s a lovely place,” Chloe smiled.
“It is,” he nodded. “But I suppose it can have its moments.”
“Oh, I’ll bet…” she said as she let her eyes travel over the stretch of stores and the coffee house, which people were sitting outside of, around heaters, sipping mugs of hot chocolate.
“I recommend there,” Mason said. “It’s got some amazing carrot cake…”
“Eww, carrot cake?” Harper said as she scrunched her nose. “I only like chocolate.” She held up the jar of spread again, and Mason couldn’t help but laugh. She was too adorable.
“They do a pretty mean chocolate cake too,” he winked.
Chloe smiled and he felt her eyes on him. It made his skin prickle and the bear inside him stirred. He instinctively pushed the feeling down as deep as it would go, then cleared his throat and reached for the handle to the mayor’s office.
“Okay,” he said as he stepped inside and the girls followed. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
5.
Chloe and Harper sat outside the coffee shop, nursing two big mugs of cocoa and wondering what on Earth they were going to do with themselves next.
They had found Mason on Main Street and had gone with him to see the mayor, and just like he had warned her, the mayor hadn’t exactly been a whole lot of use when it had come to requesting a snow plow to clear the roads in and out of town.
They had come away after being told, “it would get done when it got done…” and that they were best just making themselves comfortable.
“I’ll speak to some of the guys in the garage,” Mason had offered. “I think they should be able to pull it out… that’s, if the snow hasn’t drifted much more than it had last night.”
“We can only hope,” Chloe had smiled, and she was sure that she had seen his pupils widen, as if every time he looked at her, he was drinking her in.
He had sat with them for at least thirty minutes, and the entire time Chloe had been on the edge of her seat, pulled closer to him by some kind of invisible force that was making her body tingle. Whenever she was close to him, whenever their eyes locked, something seemed to spark between them, and it was both exciting and unnerving. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of a new town bringing her a new love, but something about Mason was turning her head into a full spin.
When he had finished his drink and rose to his feet to leave he had paused for a moment, as if he was going to say something but then changed his mind. His gaze lingered on hers, and she couldn’t help but be drawn to his lips, at the stubble on his chin and strong line of his jaw, his perfect bone structure and the way she could imagine his lips bumping up against hers, and kissing her so deeply it would take her breath away. She had started to feel flustered, and it was as if he had felt it too. He moved quickly away, smiling at her, but not quite daring to meet her eye, and Chloe had thanked him and watched him walk away. His broad shoulders and shaggy hair being an interesting mix.
He wasn’t like anyone she had met before. She may have been from a small town herself, but she had been pretty sheltered. And she had only had two serious relationships. The first had been with Harper’s father when she was younger, and the second was with him. She couldn’t even bring herself to think his name, never mind speak it.
But Mason was different in a lot of ways. He seemed to be either genuinely uninterested in her, or afraid of what he was feeling too, which, first of all, made her take notice. But there was also something about him that was just so relaxed and normal, as if being in each other’s company was something they always should have been doing. He was a mountain man, one that oozed masculinity. He was clearly well known around town, and he had a nice air of confidence about him, as if he truly knew who he was in life. There seemed to be something sad behind his eyes, but she couldn’t tell if that was because she didn’t truly know him yet, or he had been through some shit too. But she had the feeling they could easily be friends.
Who was she kidding…? More like easily more than friends…
If only she weren’t so attracted to him, she would maybe be able to pull herself away.
Harper was humming and sipping her hot chocolate as a group of kids started to play in the park in the middle of Main Street. They were rolling up big balls of snow and throwing them at each other, shrieking with laughter and hopping around on the spot. Harper’s eyes were wide and glistening, as if she loved what she was seeing.
“Why don’t you go on over?” Chloe asked her. “You haven’t had much play time of late…”
She felt guilty as soon as the words left her mouth, but she had kept Harper close to home with her best interests in mind. She had attended a play school and had friends, but since everything had started to happen at home, and things had taken such a sinister turn, she had wanted her with her at all times to make sure she was safe.
Chloe didn’t want to isolate her daughter, and now that they were away from Bridge Hollow, she didn’t see the harm in her playing in the snow with some local kids while she sipped her cocoa and watched from the sidelines.
“Really?” Harper asked with wide eyes.
Chloe smiled and nodded.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not? Just go join them.”
Harper tipped her mug and drained it quickly before pulling on her gloves and slipping her wooly hat back on to her head and then she jumped to her feet and headed the park.
Chloe watched as the kids welcomed her at once, and she remembered, fondly, what it was like to be that age, and how everyone became friends in an instant. It was such an innocent time and it was lovely to watch. If she hadn’t been on the run and wanting to put as much distance between her and Bridge Hollow as possible, maybe Lone Reach wouldn’t have been such a bad place to stay after all.
She smiled and took
another sip of her drink, and her mind wandered back to Mason and the way he had been driving in the wilderness in the middle of the night. She was so intrigued by him; she wondered what he had been doing. He had so many questions for her, but she could easily ask him some too. Why hadn’t he been at home, in bed? Why was he headed out of town at 4am? Why had he even been awake?
She scratched the side of her neck, then turned back to watch Harper. She was on her knees in the snow, with three other girls, as they were rolling up a massive snowball that looked as if it may be the beginnings of a snowman. She had a smile on her face so wide and happy, it made Chloe smile too.
All she wanted was for her little girl to be safe and happy… and that is why she was doing all of this. To make sure they were out of harm’s way and could enjoy their life.
“Okay!” a familiar voice bellowed from behind her, making her jump.
She turned to see Mason walking her way, and she instantly felt a warmth rise inside her chest. She hoped she wasn’t blushing, as she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I spoke with some of the guys at the garage and they reckon there was more shifting of snow last night… They headed up that way this morning before they heard the news and said the road was totally impassable not far from where I found you.”
He looked almost embarrassed to be telling her the news, and Chloe couldn’t help but let a little moan escape her lips.
“Seriously?” she asked as she rubbed her forehead. “So, my car is gone?”
“Not gone,” Mason said sympathetically. “Just covered in snow. Hidden away… Being kept in its own little ice vault.”
“But… all of our stuff,” she said, her head beginning to spin. “We have nothing but the clothes on our backs…”
The makings of a headache were working their way to the surface and, suddenly, Chloe didn’t feel very optimistic at all.
They were well and truly stuck.
Who even knew if the car was okay and they would ever get on the road again?
“If I were you, I would look on the bright side,” Mason said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “Listen, you could have been killed last night. And if I hadn’t been driving by exactly when I was, you could have been caught in further snowfall.”
Bear For Her (Lone Reach Shifters Book 1) Page 3